Pius XII an "enemy of Third Reich", documents show

Newly discovered documents from the archives of the former East German
secret service, the Stasi, show that wartime Pope Pius XII was
considered an enemy of Hitler's Third Reich, not a collaborator.

Zenit
reports that that the documents show that Adolf Hitler's No 1 enemy was
the Vatican's secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII.

In an article published last Thursday by Italian paper, La Repubblica,
reporter Marco Ansaldo announced that he has a dossier on Pius XII that
complements documentation found in the Vatican Archives.

Memos
and letters unearthed at a depot used by the Stasi, the East German
secret police, show that Nazi spies within the Vatican were concerned
at the Pope's efforts to help displaced Poles and Jews.

One
document from the head of Berlin's police force tells Joachim von
Ribbentrop, the Third Reich's foreign minister, that the Catholic
Church was providing assistance to Jews "both in terms of people and
financially."

In a commentary on the new documents, Sr Margherita Marchione, author and expert on Pius XII, told Zenit that the campaign against the Pope was the work of the Soviets.

"Russia's
plans were to control Europe after the war. The only outspoken obstacle
to Russia's plan in Europe was the Catholic Church," Sr Marchione wrote.

"The
first attacks claiming that the Church had endorsed silently the
atrocities of the Nazis came from Communist Russia," she explained.

"Soon
to control Poland, and other vast areas in Eastern Europe, Russia saw
the need to break the loyalty to the Pope of Catholic majorities in
those countries.

"The plan was a simple one: convince everyone
that the Pope supported the hated Nazis during the war and, therefore,
neither he nor the Church could be trusted after the war. The
destruction of the Church would leave the field wide open for Russian
influence and control."